Eagle Twin - The Feather Tipped The Serpents Scale

When you sit down to listen to a band called Eagle Twin you don't expect to be greeted with a lovelorn acoustic offering, and while the band recorded their second album, you get the feeling that there wasn't an acoustic guitar within a 100-mile radius.

When you sit down to listen to a band called Eagle Twin you don't expect to be greeted with a lovelorn acoustic offering, and while the band recorded their second album, you get the feeling that there wasn't an acoustic guitar within a 100-mile radius. This is a band created for one thing, noise. Thunderous noise rock. Hailing from Salt Lake City, Utah, Eagle Twin is made up of jus two members, although you wouldn't know it, both guitarist and vocalist Gentry Densley and drummer Tyler Smith manage to create a sound that 5 metal bands playing together would be proud of.

Broadly the bands hilariously titled second LP, The Feather Tipped The Serpent's Scale, can be classified as a doom or sludge metal record, however it is much more than that. At times the band infuse their enormous sound with touches of blues, jazz, and psych-rock. Of course those familiar with Gentry Densley's previous output including Iceburn and Ascend will not be surprised. Both those bands have been credited with influencing some of the most innovative and experimental heavy music from Isis to Sunn 0))).

Whilst Eagle Twins debut The Unkindness of Crows was a loose concept album, based on the mythology around crows, (honestly) their recent effort seems to be a free for all of hard rock for the pair. The first two tracks, 'Ballad of Job Cain' part 1 and 2 consist of 18 minutes of thrashing drums, huge guitar riffs and mainly unintelligible guttural vocals, its truly a metal fans dream. The rest of the album continues in exactly the same vein, often with the songs breakdown and groove allowing Densley to experiment with some expertly executed sludgy riffs on top of Smiths slow jazzy playing.

Although the album is expectedly dark, the band clearly has a self-aware sense of humour too. The song 'Horn Snake Horn' is an unexpectedly hilarious song, if you take it that way, Sounding more like Mark Lanegan than ever Densley sings about a mythical beast with "horns made of snakes with horns," managing to pull of a parody of some metal bands that are obsessed with the mythical side of things.

In a way the LPs greatest strength is also its weakness, although each song is an enormous, loud and thrilling composition it is tough to sit through such an intensely heavy album in one go. It demands a lot from the listener, and although this is no bad thing The Feather Tipped The Serpents Scale doesn't feel like it has enough variation, despite the majesty that can be found in the grand scale of the songs, ultimately much of the quality work that Densley and Smith do is lost in their barrage of noise. If you enjoy noise this album is a must listen, but also an interesting one if you are looking for experimentation.